Griefer
by Paint a story. Write a picture
Summary: Two friends are living and working in harmony, building their farm base. One day, our hero needs to go to the Nether to get materials. And that's when it all goes wrong.
1. Chapter 1 - Together

It's a quiet day, and we make it together.

I've just placed the last row of seeds, and move on to place the next row, inspecting my work as I go. I check the water in the centre of the farm, and count four metres outwards… it's all hydrated!

"Just one bucket can go so far." I smile, and bend down to plant the rest of the seeds. I hear the call from Adam below, muffled. "Say something?" "Farming!" I call back. "Hold on!"

We have our strengths and weaknesses, it seems. I'm more of a farmer, a resource-gatherer-type. There's some real pleasure I get just from starting from nearly nothing, and building up a large collection of everything you need. Adam doesn't get it, especially the mining part. When I go down to caves, every vein of ore I find is a little tiny bit of happiness, even coal. If Adam has to go mining, he digs as far down as he can, pans for gold, diamonds, and the iron that he needs, and gets going. Whereas I could spend hours just down in those mines, dodging monsters and collecting resources. But today, it's a beautiful day out, so I decide it's a farming day. The orchard is cut down and replanted, ready to gather more wood, and now I'm sowing the farms, ready for more food.

Adam is more of a builder-cum-engineer type. If anything involves redstone or machinery, he's up for it. I'm not much for automated farms, but he insists that every resource we have has a machine set up for it. It takes too much time and effort for me, so I leave him to it. We're a team; I get the materials, and he makes things out of them.

Then, I feel it. The ground shifts beneath me. The earth itself is starting to crack, and I'm standing on top of it. I don't even think; I dive out of the way before the earth collapses.

Then, the ground is shovelled away, and Adam's head pokes out of where I was standing just two seconds ago. He turns around, to find me lying on the floor, clutching my arm.

"I think I fell on it," I grimace, pointing to the arm. "What are you doing? Couldn't you give me some warning?" "I said 'Hold on'" Adam shrugs. "Anyway, I thought we were gonna kit this place out," he gestures to the wheat field. Or at least, the wheat-field to be, as everything is still growing. "Pistons, water channels, hoppers and chests, the lot." It's only a nine-by-nine enclosure; I don't think you can make it much more efficient than if you harvest it all yourself. I say as much to him.

"Suit yourself. At least help me with the mob farm, later," he climbs out of the hole, shaking off the excess dirt and picking it up. "You'll enjoy it; once it's set up, you'll have bonemeal pouring out of your ears, for those peasant farms of yours." "My farms are anything but peasant," I protest, sweeping my arm towards the field before me.

He glances around at the expanse of – if I don't mind saying so – beautifully arranged crops. The wheat enclosures are standing side-by-side in fenced-off boxes, for efficient harvesting, but the rest is allowed to grow all over the hill. Carrots, potatoes and beetroot all fill the rolling hills up to the horizon, with the windmill I built standing proud in the middle. A little further east, you can't see further for all the sugar canes growing, clumped together as tightly as possible. Further west, rows of melon and pumpkin stalks line the river; already most of the fruits have grown. This field is my field, and I've done everything to make it so. Adam's machines are his business.

"Okay, where's the mob farm, then? We should get that finished up," I agree.


	2. Chapter 2 - A Rock and a High Place

It's the next day, and several hours have passed; the sun is already starting to set. The labour is tough; the project requires building up in the sky. And for all the supports and scaffolds I build to help me, it doesn't change the fact that I'm basically afraid of heights. If Adam is, you would never notice. He jumps from block to block, building supports, walls and water channels, as if the dizzyingly thin air threatening to blow me off the edge isn't there. He seems more comfortable up in the air or below the ground than he does on the surface.

"Damn, I forgot to bring the iron up. We need to fill these dispensers with water buckets," he gestures to the dispensers loaded on the side of every wall. I look up; I had stayed safe inside the walls of the mob chamber, digging water channels. I pass him some iron, which he takes to the crafting bench to make some buckets with.

Once the main building structure is done, it's time to wire up the redstone. As this is Adam's department, I stand on top, hoping I can go back down to the ground soon and be done with it.

"Shit," I hear him say from further down. "Have you got any comparators?" he calls up.

I lie down on my stomach and poke my head over the edge, calling down without looking in that direction, "Why would I have any?"

I can hear Adam's frown. He's good at frowning. "Can you get some for me? It'll get you down off this tall building," he grins, with a hint of mischief. He knows I don't like heights; I'm pretty sure he's partly brought me up here to annoy me in the first place. So it's with mixed feelings that I agree to go down to get the resources.

Comparators are expensive. In order to make redstone devices work – at least, as far as I understood from Adam's lectures – you need comparators, to check the strength of the redstone signal, or to make a clock, to create a signal that turns on and off, again and again and again. But you need quartz to build them, and you can only find them in one place. The Nether. I'm not so happy going there either, but Adam's put me between a rock and a high place. Deciding to go for the rock, I bid my farewell and climb down the ladder, glancing at Adam working on the way down. For just a moment, I thought I saw a glint in his eye. But it's gone as quickly as it appeared, and his mask of concentration is back as he arranges the wiring.

When I reach the bottom of the tower – my fingers stiff from climbing all those rungs – I notice the killing chamber, where the monsters fall. It's ingenious, in a dark and twisted way. Monsters are created from the darkness; so if you build a big, dark, room, you can get monsters to appear. But if you control the conditions in that dark room so that all the monsters fall to their deaths as soon as they come alive, you can utilise them for your own material gain.

Already, I see some monsters falling from the now-darkened tower above. Created from nothing, with no purpose but to die on the hard ground below, and the remains of their bodies to be used to craft arrows and fertilise crops. Seems a cold way to go, I reflect.

I make my way to the portal that will take me to the Nether.


	3. Chapter 3 - The Bridge

My preparations are short, and efficient. It's not a task I enjoy, but I know how to prepare for it. All my valuables are stored safe in a chest, in case I lose them, and I've got all my armour, specially made for maximum protection. I've brought along several pickaxes, to mine the quartz, as well as cobblestone blocks and ladders, to allow me to reach high places if – God forbid – I really need to. My sword is made of diamonds, and enchanted with a spell, that allows the blade to be five times sharper than when it came off the crafting bench. It will cut through monsters like a knife through cheese. Hopefully it won't come to that, though.

The portal is kept in a small shack made of cobblestone, a small distance away from our house. Adam doesn't like the noises – to be honest, it gives me the heebies as well. I open the door with a creak, and see the portal immediately before me. A black, imposing monolith; it's frame is made of the hardest obsidian. Inside the frame, is a swirling, purple mass. It's difficult to describe as a surface, because it's neither still nor flat; it moves and pulsates, in an odd, eerie rhythm that doesn't match any human music. The mass is translucent; I can see the cobblestone walls behind it, but I know that it will take me to another dimension. I have to trust Adam when he says that it's safe. He's been here many times.

I steel myself, and step inside the mass. Immediately I feel the organicness of it; there is a creature living inside the portal. Its purple tendrils wrap around me and embrace me. I want to move, but I can't; the tendrils hold tight, constricting my chest, and I start to feel sick. The world is swirling around me, I can't breathe properly, and my vision is starting to fog. Soon, all I can see is a haze of purple, with many layers of depth, like the fog extends infinitely into the horizon. I look back, and can't see the shack anymore; it has long disappeared behind me. Wherever I turn is the same; I'm stranded in a meaningless, anchorless ocean of purple.

It feels like forever, but finally, the fog starts to clear, and the tendrils relax and slide away. My chest expands, and I feel like I can breathe properly, although I'm still dizzy and feeling like I'm about to throw up. I start to take in my surroundings. The building on the other end is not natural; Adam made this when he first came to the Nether. It's a simple affair, but neatly done: the walls are made out of stone bricks, and the cobblestone floor – several layers thick, I think - is covered in a red carpet. Inside are all the basic supplies, packed to an efficient minimum; the crafting bench sits next to a small smelting furnace. A short distance away is a chest, for leaving any supplies. The door is made of iron, so, try as I might, it won't budge by hand. There's a button on the side, though; I press it, and the door swings open automatically.

That's when I realise where the portal has placed us. Out of the door is a land-bridge, stretching to the continent almost a hundred metres away. The portal room is suspended high up in the air, and I can see that because the land-bridge is a hall-way made entirely of glass. Even the floors are made of glass, so that I feel like I'm walking on nothing. It gets worse, once I make the mistake of looking down; below is a giant lava lake, stretching and curving around the land below in a faint crescent-shape. It is a grinning mouth, looking up and waiting.

Scared, now, but determined, I press on. Though the hall-way is vertiginous, and feels like it could crack at any moment, it helps that the walls are so close; I put my hands on the protective glass surface to remind me that it's real. It takes one step, then another. And another. And another one after that. All the while, not looking down. Hands on either side, letting the glass wall guide me on. The dark red land ahead doesn't look inviting, but I would give anything to be on that other side straight away. It's not getting any closer.

Step by step, I cross the bridge.


	4. Chapter 4 - Stranger

When I reach the other side, I have to stop and breathe properly for a few seconds. I think I had been holding my breath for a while. Only then do I notice the place I've arrived in, as the heat hits me like a furnace. Now that I can see it all for myself, it strikes me just how red it all is. The ground beneath me is a hard, red rock, that dominates the landscape, with only a few pockets of brown sludge in between. Fires burn everywhere, without any hint of spreading or abating, just an endless blaze wherever they burn, dotting the landscape as if they were bushes or trees. Even the air seems red. It's more than just the constant heat; the air seems full of red particles… I'm breathing in red, feeling it inside me.

I start to explore; I have a purpose here, after all. The land is fairly empty here; just a small high-up peninsula, which drops off into the lava lake below a little further east. A small path leads down that way, if I wanted to explore the lake, but I definitely don't. Up north, though, is a small hill. I aim for that, stepping around the fires and the brown mud collecting in puddles around the rocky ground.

As I climb the hill, I find someone else already standing at the top, their back turned towards me. Absurdly, I wonder if Adam has come here ahead of me; then I remember that there is only one way out of the portal. The stranger is shirtless, wearing only a thin pair of trousers shredded beyond repair. As I come a little closer, I realise several things are wrong. The stranger is huge: thick, trunk-like muscles make up its arms and legs. Also, its skin is pink.

It turns around, and I yell in shock and disgust, with a hand going to the sword behind my back. It isn't remotely human at all.

The thing looks a bit like a pig, in the shape of a man; or it might've done. It's pink skin – I don't know how I didn't notice that before – is marked with decay; eaten away in places. It has a snout, a mouth with two sharp tusks, and a mean eye, but the other eye is lost, along with half of its face. A bare skull pokes out of the side of its head, with an empty eye-socket staring at me blankly. It casts a tall, imposing figure; it looks like it could crush me just by falling over.

I almost make to run away, but something stops me. The creature isn't moving to attack me, or threaten me. In fact, it isn't doing anything. Its remaining eye is yellow, and it isn't mean at all, it's just curious. Despite its horrific appearance, something convinces me that the creature doesn't mean any harm.

On a bizarre impulse, I reach out my hand towards it; whether to stroke it, or to shake its hand, I couldn't say. But it doesn't matter; the pig-thing looks blankly at the offered hand, and walks away, down the hill I just came from. Surprised, but relieved that nothing came to violence, I take my hand off my sword, and carry on.


	5. Chapter 5 - Surprise

Not far from where I found the pig-thing, I find my first quartz vein, and then it starts to get better. I'm already getting used to the landscape, as hot and uncomfortable as it is. The monotony of the red landscape is kind of soothing; I can think of this just like a big cave. With that thought in mind, I get out my pickaxe, and start mining away. There are more of the pig-things than the first, all with deformities: patches of skin decayed and eaten away, bones sticking out; some have limbs missing. They wander around, and occasionally come up to inspect me, their bone-and-flesh faces full of curiosity for the strange human. But all of them eventually move on and do something else, confirming my belief that they're harmless. Still, I give them a wide berth.

Once the vein is exhausted, I move on, resolving to get as much quartz as I can find while I'm here. Actually, there are plenty of veins, and they're scattered just about everywhere. On the ground, in the walls; I can see several quartz rocks poking out of the ceilings, too. They're very easy to find. Before long, it becomes a game, to see how much quartz I can find in the surrounding area. Soon, there's nothing but me, and the steady rhythmic thump-thump of my pickaxe. Striking the red, picking up the white, and putting it away in my pack. Even the pig-things eventually all go away, leaving me to my red world.

As I clear the area of quartz, I move on. I consider using torches to mark my way, but the area is actually quite bright; the red particles in the air tend to pulsate with a sort of light. It's enough to see-by; and anyway, the hill I first came over is in sight.

My pickaxe is wearing thin, so I take the head from another pickaxe and switch it out. Soon, I'm back to the calming, repetitive rhythm of mining.

* * *

I think a few hours have passed since arriving in the Nether; I'm sweaty and exhausted, but my bag is full, so I'm content. I trace my path back to the hill with ease - I only need to look for all the smashed and empty quartz veins – and make my way back to the bridge. I cross with some anxiety, but as I've done it once now, I know it's okay.

As I'm making my way towards the portal house, though, something starts to feel strange. The house is coming closer, and something about it feels different. I get closer, trying to see what's inside, but I realise I can't. Behind the narrow slats of the iron door, there's… lava? That doesn't make any sense, how could lava get into the portal shack? There wasn't a leak before. I step back and look up to see if a lava-fall has found its way down from the ceiling.

And that's when I notice the dispenser in the roof.

By the time I've figured it out, it's too late. The hall-way in front of me explodes.


	6. Chapter 6 - Under Fire

The first blast takes out the floor underneath me, and it's all I can do to grab onto the cracked ledge, with the grinning mouth of the lava lake below threatening to swallow me up if I fall. The glass is sheared unevenly, and I cry out in pain as it cuts my hand, but it's all I have to hold onto. Knowing the next blast could be any second, it takes all the will-power and strength in my arms to haul myself onto the glass floor, stumble to my feet, and run. Another explosion behind me; I feel the floor breaking, but this time I'm faster. The dispenser on the roof is launching TNT on a clock, now, shooting in a straight line. All I have to do is outrun the trajectory, and the rest will fall into the lava. My feet pound on the glass, growing more brittle with every explosion; somehow the whole hallway hasn't collapsed.

I stumble onto the ledge and out of the hallway. The peninsula is full of the pig creatures, wandering around aimlessly. Some have turned to look at the destruction on the bridge, but most are incurious. They have seen humans before. I turn around to examine the bridge, and take in the scale of what just happened. The bridge is mostly destroyed, and now the portal-shack is standing alone, full of deadly lava, and firing explosive TNT at anyone who tries to get near. By now, the TNT is launching harmlessly into the lake below. But how am I going to get back home?

There are more dispensers on the roof. I didn't see anyone place them there, but I was busy running for my life. Who could be behind this? Are the pig-creatures sentient? Is Adam playing some sick game, trying to scare me? If so, I'm having stern words with him; he almost killed me.

All of a sudden, it starts to go wrong again. Arrows are coming out of the dispensers, instead of TNT, and they're landing on the peninsula. I instinctively make towards the remains of the bridge – the only shelter I have left – until I hear rattling shouts behind me. The pig-creatures! They're being hit, as well. They're not getting hurt, it seems – they're too big for that – but they are getting angry. Several of the creatures are thumping their chests as arrows dig into their decaying flesh, and turning towards the only nearby human – me.

All of the creatures are running towards me now, with shocking speed, and I realise that hiding isn't an option. I slide my sword out from its sheath. As the first one approaches, I dodge out of the way, hoping I won't have to kill it, but as it rears up to strike from behind me, I realise I'm out of options. I slice it across the chest, and give it a thump with my boot to push it off the ledge next to the bridge. By that time, the next creature is nearly on me: I bring the sword round, and thrust where I think the heart is.

The creatures behind it hesitate for a second, realising that their foe isn't going to give up easily. This gave me the precious time I needed to slip past them and escape. But evidently, they aren't holding off for long. I make towards the hill, but more of the pig-men are coming over the crest. Then I remember; there's a path down to the lake. It's not a great solution, but maybe I'll find a place to hole up where I can take out the pig-men one at a time. A blinding pain breaks out on my sword arm as an arrow sinks itself in, and then I remember; I'm still under fire. I've got to act quickly!

The descent down the slope is anything but fun. I'm no longer under attack from two sides – the arrow-dispensers can't reach me further down the hill – but trying to climb down a steep hill, with lava to break your fall at the bottom, and murderous monsters chasing you from the top, is difficult. I can't stop to engage them; the pig-men have an advantage in height over me. All they have to do is jump, and I'm dead.

Then, suddenly, I'm at the lake, and out of options. The endless expanse of lava stretches out before me, with no way of crossing. The pig-men are coming up behind me, in pain and ready to rip me limb from limb. And there's nowhere else to go.

But then, I remember. The ladders! And the cobblestone! All I have to do is build a pillar up using the cobblestone blocks. I work quicker than I've ever worked in my life, building up the cobblestone pile, then standing on it. I place the blocks under my feet, then stand on the blocks I've just placed. A pigman has almost reached me; I manage to wave my sword at it with my left arm, while my right arm screams in pain from the arrow. Sweat is pouring in what feels like buckets, and the heat from the lava is threatening to suffocate me, but I keep building the pillar, until eventually I'm just out of the reach of the pig creatures. By that time, at least a dozen of them are swarming around the base of the pillar, with more climbing down the hill, but I'm at least able to hack away with my sword. The closest ones can be finished with a stab through the brain; the further ones, I can cut away an arm or a hand.

It takes a solid, frenzied and exhausting half an hour before the threat is over, and the pig-men are all dead at the bottom. Then another ten minutes while I make sure I'm safe, and no more are coming down. Then, at last, I can land – the soft, flesh of the corpses breaking my fall. I begin my exhausted trip back up the slope.

When I finally crawl back up to the top, there are no more monsters, and no more arrows.

Just a newly-repaired bridge, with a figure in black standing at the end of it.


End file.
